Obviously, the internet has always been a toxic place, (the phrase “flame war” has been around for decades,) but it seems to have gotten so much worse over the last few years. I used to think decentralization of the internet would fix the worst of it, but Lemmy seems to have gotten worse alongside the rest of internet culture, proving me wrong. How do we fix/improve this culture of toxicity?
The biggest one is we have to get rid of engagement algorithms. All the major platforms show you content more like that which you interact with, which is usually things that piss you off or things you heartily agree with. This creates bubbles and prevents exposure to new ideas and different thinking people. And when you have that for a few decades, it greatly reduces empathy for your fellow man.
Go back to like the '90s or so and politics was dinner table conversation, the sort of thing that would be discussed in friendly company. Because it was understood that while you and I might disagree on what the best path for America is, we both understand that we both want America to be great.
But go forward to the early 2000s, 24-hour cable news, internet, echo chambers and bubbles started to form. And both sides politically took advantage of this, drummed up the rhetoric and no longer was it ‘we are better for America’ it became ‘the other guys don’t believe in what America stands for and anyone who supports them is not American’.
This killed the discourse. No more respectful disagreement, no more opponents shaking hands, it became a fight to the death for the future of the country in the eyes of many voters.
This is not just politics. It’s every issue. It’s how we have our discourse now. Respectful debate is dying. Whatever the issue is, you either agree with me or you’re awful. And that is what we need to fix.
We need to promote empathy, mutual understanding, and respect for those we disagree with.
I like what you have to say, but I will be honest. Hate radio is what started this journey for me back in the 1980s and there was no mythical time you could have a polite conversation in the US about politics. The whole politics ruining Thanksgiving has been going on since the Vietnam War and the concept probably dates back to before the Revolutionary War in the US.
Before Vietnam the US literally purged everyone that was too left with McCarthyism. Before engagement algorithms there was constant propaganda on all TV channels, radio, and print designed to do everything from break up unions to reinforce the Christian Nationalist movement. Think adding In God We Trust to all money in 1955.
I see where you are coming from as I was once there long ago. When you unravel the propaganda/lies you begin to see the bigger picture and understand why the forces that control us work so hard to misinform and create an alternative reality where America is the good guy.
The reckoning of what the US has done and continues to do is truly insurmountable for a typical human being. Mutual understanding easily becomes a tool of oppression where we are expected to forget all of history and culture to compromise with people who are selfish and misinformed.
You can give someone who wants to destroy you all the respect in the world and it won’t change that they want to destroy you and will given the chance. This is the reality we face and harkening back to an imagined time of mutual respect is not the panacea we would like to think it is.
You’re so right with all that you say. Except your admirable self deprecating US exceptionalism. US peeps shouldn’t beat themselves up about the crimes or horrible acts their countrymen are/have done. Where and when any other country is in the same position individuals of those places act in the same ways. Cue every powerful and not so powerful civilisation in history. The rest of us it seems have to clean up their messes as best we can. It seems its a natural animal response that we as a species haven’t been able to adequately address socially or civilisationally.
I don’t really know enough about the subject and how it relates. But these awful group dynamics aren’t confined to humans alone, i feel like this article, Chimpanzees in Uganda’s Kibale National Park wage lethal ‘civil war’, relates in an important way to the point you make in your comment.